Chomsky is an intelligent man who has shown much that is wrong with our system but in the course of uttering his jeremiads has developed a peculiar filter to his consciousness.
The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc
Try stock brokers and investment analysts -- this was the center of the financial district. Or are such as they not worthy of sympathy?
We can express justified horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators.
By all means we should try to understand. But understanding will not alleviate the basic situation. It is not at bottom what we have done but what we are that is so intolerable to radical Islam. Our wealth, the success of our markets and our cultural influence has moved round the globe, bringing our Western ideas of capitalism, human rights, property rights, democracy, and our cultural values with them. This is simply intolerable to the back hills Islam of the Taleban, and no amount of understanding or appeasement will change it.
At this point, there is no alternative to teaching the Taleban and their ilk what it is that they must not do. To do anything else is to stretch out our necks for the next attack. |
